Honeytrap
by Metatrix
Summary: Honeytrap, n. A ruse in which a spy uses emotional and/or sexual seduction to obtain clandestine information. SS/HG, set during HBP & DH, with Snape as honeypot and Hermione as his target. Follows canon. "What was the boy doing cloistered up in Dumbledore's office for hours on end? Potter sure as hell wasn't going to tell him. But the Granger girl just might."
1. The Plan

**Author's Note:** Okay, so I'm starting an SS/HG story. For those who are reading Pennines, don't worry...there will be an update on that Saturday. But this one came to me a few days ago, and I had it fully plotted in detail within 24 hours. So I decided to post the first chapter and see what kind of interest there was in it.

 **Chapter 1: The Plan**

He wasn't supposed to fall in love with her.

In the beginning, the sole intention had been to get close to her, to gain her trust. Manipulative, perhaps. But borne of necessity. Dumbledore had backed him into a corner, keeping him in the dark, and he had had but a scant few months left before the entire world would know him as a traitor.

He had to protect Lily's boy in order to secure his own redemption. But how could he protect him if he didn't even know what Dumbledore had planned for him?

Potter would never tell him. But if he played her well…the Granger girl just might.

So he did. He played the Byronic hero to perfection - and she fell for it, the secrets spilling from her lips without a moment's hesitation.

But then he fell for her.

* * *

Severus Snape stalked down the hall to Dumbledore's office, infusing every step and billow of his robes with dark rage; a small knot of first years scattered as he approached.

It was the first Saturday of term, and the Potter boy had already earned a detention with him. A detention that he had failed to show up for. As if talking back to him in front of the entire sixth year Defense Against the Dark Arts class wasn't bad enough, the boy now apparently thought himself above serving detentions, as well.

"Acid pops," he barked at the Gargoyle, which jumped aside for him more quickly than usual. Even the masonry was terrified of him, he noted with satisfaction.

He took the revolving staircase two steps at a time, reaching the top within seconds, and threw open the door with a crash. The Headmaster looked up at him from behind his desk, mouth graced with a placid little smile; Severus's closed fist convulsed with the sudden urge to strike it off of his face.

"Ah, Severus. How can I help you? Apart from offering you a lemon drop, of course?" Dumbledore asked in a benign tone of voice that grated against his ears.

Severus waved his hand in front of himself, momentarily too enraged to find words. "Potter did not show up for his detention with me this evening!" he finally choked out.

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, his smug arsed smile growing even wider. "Ah, is that all?" Severus sputtered, spittle flying from his lips, but Dumbledore held up a hand to forestall him. "I am afraid that is my fault, actually. I arranged for Harry to meet with me this evening, and forgot all about his detention. I apologize, but surely you can reschedule it for next weekend?" Severus snapped his mouth shut, and nodded mutely. "Now, if that is all, Harry will be on his way up here any minute now. The house elves are serving a most delicious fig pudding as we speak; if you walk there as quickly as you did on your way here, you might just catch the last of it."

Severus bristled at the curt dismissal, but put that affront aside for now. "Why are you meeting with Potter tonight?"

Dumbledore steepled his fingers together, giving him a considering look over the tops of his half-moon spectacles. "I have decided to give Harry some private lessons this year."

"Private lessons? In what?" Surely the Headmaster wasn't still trying to bang Occlumency into the boy's thick head? Well, if he was, more fool him. It was a lost cause, even with Dumbledore as teacher.

Dumbledore dropped his eyes to a stack of parchments on his desk, beginning to rifle through them. "That, I'm afraid, my dear boy, I am not at liberty to discuss with you."

"What? Why not?" he asked indignantly. Since when did the Headmaster keep secrets from him?

"We each have our roles to play in this war. You have yours, and Harry has his. I have found that it is best if we keep everyone informed on a need-to-know basis." He said all of this without even deigning to lift his eyes from the parchments before him.

"Need to know basis? I need to know what you are meeting with Potter about!" he snapped.

"I can assure you, Severus, that you do not." Dumbledore's gaze drifted over to the grandfather clock against the far wall. "Now, it is almost eight o'clock. The house elves will have cleared the tables if you do not hurry."

Severus knew it as the firm dismissal that it was. He turned swiftly on his heel and stalked back toward the door.

When he reached it, he hesitated with his hand on the door knob, and spoke clearly but quietly without turning back around to face Dumbledore. "You ask a great deal of me, and yet you take just as much for granted, Headmaster. I put my trust in you — you would do well to return it."

* * *

Back from his meeting with Dumbledore, Severus stormed through the door of his office, banging it shut behind him. He strode across the room, then spun on his heel and kicked his desk, which only served to make his foot throb in addition to his temple. He hurled himself backward into his leather chair with a low growl. He let his eyes fall shut, bringing his right hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and waving his left at his desk drawer, which slid open with a creak. He deftly caught the pack of cigarettes that flew out of the drawer, flipped it open, and removed a cigarette from the pack with his mouth, all without removing his right hand from his nose. He threw the pack back across his desk, and it skittered to a stop just before it reached the other end. With another curt wave of his left hand, the tip of the cigarette burst into flame; he took a long drag, flinging the same arm out and letting it fall heavily onto the armrest beside him, the cigarette hanging limply from between his fingers. He sighed as the nicotine hit his blood, and tilted his head back over the headrest, his right hand moving from the bridge of his nose to massage the underside of his brows.

So, that's how the Headmaster wanted to play it. Keep his spy in the dark, throwing him little crumbs of information only when absolutely necessary.

He needed to know what it was exactly that Dumbledore was doing cloistered up for hours with Potter in his office. Only problem was, Potter sure as hell wasn't going to tell him.

If he was going to put his life, his freedom — hell, his very soul — on the line, he wanted a hand in the outcome. Some kind of assurance that all his years of sacrifice would actually amount to something. That he would finally achieve his hard won redemption for his role in Lily's death. And he wasn't about to bank the Dark Lord's downfall on the Machiavellian schemings of an increasingly paranoid old man, his hare brained protégé, and a couple of his teenaged sidekicks.

His gaze fell onto the pile of unmarked essays obscuring the surface of his desk. He had assigned the sixth years a foot of parchment on the definition of the Dark Arts. What he had received from them was a stack of utter rubbish, each argument more insipid than the next. He groaned as his eyes caught the topmost paper, covered from top to bottom in great slashes of red ink. That one was Granger's, of course. Not a single fucking insightful or original thought anywhere within those twenty inches of tightly scripted verbal diarrhoea.

Suddenly, he straightened in his chair as he knew a momentary flash of inspiration. His lips curled into a slow smile.

No, Potter sure as hell wasn't going to confide in him. But if he played his role well… _she_ just might. After all, what kind of a spy would he be if he couldn't wheedle secrets out of a 17 year old girl? And a teacher's pet, always so desperate to please, no less!

It was a dirty job. He couldn't get around that. But so was murdering the Headmaster. And in times of war, you did what you had to do. What was it that the old bastard always said? Ah yes. It was for the Greater Good.

He stubbed his cigarette out on the edge of his desk, and reached for her essay. He flicked his wand over it, and the large red _A_ disappeared from the top of the page. Next, he picked up his self-inking red quill and scrawled an _O_ in its place. After a moment's careful deliberation, he banished the _O,_ replacing it with an _E._

Yes that would be sufficient to flatter her, while still leaving her yearning to impress him.

With another flick of his wand, the reams of red ink disappeared from the paragraphs below, leaving only her elegantly penned black ink behind. He flipped the parchment over, exchanged his red quill for a blue one, and began to write.

 _"_ _You present an interesting argument, Miss Granger…"_

* * *

 **Author's Note:** So...should I continue? Write this in parallel to Pennines? Focus on Pennines then come back to this? Tell me! And also, if you would like to beta this and/or just let me bounce ideas off of you, please message me. Thanks.


	2. Epistolary Exchange

**Author's Note:** Thanks to Snapeslittleblackbuttons and Relish RedShoes for their input on this chapter. Thanks also to skyONflames, Amarenima Redwood, Katherine, Ravenswing79, moriah, julesyx0, callalil27, XinconceivableX, and Petite Mule for their reviews of the first chapter. Thanks also for all the follows/faves. Thanks to all your encouragement, I have decided to go ahead and write Honeytrap alongside Pennines.

 **Chapter 2: Epistolary Exchange**

Hermione Granger had had a rotten go of it the first week back at school. NEWT level work was proving more difficult than she had anticipated. Where the OWLs had emphasized factual knowledge and practical competence, the NEWTs demanded a deep theoretical understanding and innovative problem solving. In everything from Charms to Arithmancy, the usual step-by-step instruction were being replaced with nothing more than a vague conceptual overview. When Hermione had approached Professor McGonagall after class to ask for a list of items that would appear on the NEWTs, she had been mortified by the answer: "At this stage, you should be figuring that out for yourself, Hermione. You can't expect your teachers to spoon feed you forever. Nobody's going to do that for you in the real world." She had barely made it out of the classroom before her lip started to quiver. She had to duck into the loo to collect herself, and ended up running late for Ancient Runes.

Then there was Harry, who was consistently showing her up in Potions, all because of that stupid book. They had had four classes so far, and no matter how closely she followed the instructions — measuring everything twice — Harry's potion always ended up matching the description in the book better than hers did. Harry had offered to share the Prince's annotations with her, of course, but she had refused. Not only because it was cheating, but also because she was determined to brew the potions in the way that they were meant to be brewed — according to the textbook. What was the point of having a textbook at all, if you deviated from its instructions at whim? No matter how clever the Prince was, he couldn't possibly be more correct than Borage. If he was, then they would be studying from _his_ textbook instead, now wouldn't they?

And the final nail in the coffin of her self-esteem had been Defence Against the Dark Arts. It was her worst subject, and now that Professor Snape was teaching it, she was doomed. At the start of class, she had actually been excited — whatever else he was, Professor Snape was a good teacher, and perhaps that was exactly what she needed to improve in the subject. He had even seemed to sympathize in his own prickly way, telling the class he was surprised that they had passed their OWLs given the disastrous parade of teachers that they had been saddled with throughout the years. She had seen Harry bristle at that out of the corner of her eye, but Hermione could read between the lines. She knew that was Snape speak for: "I'm going to do my level best to get you kids up to speed before your NEWTs."

And then he had made that speech about the Dark Arts. The man really was mesmerizing when he spoke on his passions. By the end of it, Hermione had been balancing on the edge of her seat with anticipation.

But that had lasted only until she had answered his question about the advantages of silent spell casting in duels. He had cut her down: "an answer copied almost word for word from the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six," he had sneered, chastising her as he had a million times in the past for reciting the textbook verbatim. It had stopped bothering her by the end of her first year. She was a pedant, and she was proud of it!

But this time, her stomach had dropped into her shoes. Maybe it was because the textbook was failing her in Potions, or maybe it was McGonagall's comment still niggling in the back of her mind. But she simply hadn't been able to brush his rebuke aside this time. She was beginning to wonder if maybe he had a point. That maybe he hadn't spent five years disdaining her tendency for route memorization simply to pick on her. Since none of the other teachers had ever complained before, she had always assumed that he was just trying to needle her. But could it be that all the rest of her teachers secretly agreed, only they were too nice to say it to her face? The thought of it was almost too humiliating to bear.

So by the time that the second week of term rolled around, Hermione's self-confidence was at an all time low. And when Snape strode between the aisles at the end of class that Monday, handing back their first essays of the year, she hastily shoved her scroll in her rucksack without even glancing at it, not wanting her classmates to catch sight of the less than stellar grade that he had certainly assigned her.

She waited until she was ensconced in the safety of her bed that night, hangings drawn shut, before she finally unfurled the parchment with trepidation, steeling herself for the barbed remarks that she had come to expect from her exacting professor. She nearly dropped the essay when her eyes landed on the large _E_ gracing the top of the page. She muttered a quick _Lumos_ and brought the tip of her lit wand right to the surface of her parchment, just to be sure. No, it was definitely an _E_. But she had barely scraped an _E_ on her Defence OWL! And everybody knew that Professor Snape marked harder than the examiners did.

Her lips had already curled into a wide grin, and a giddy, fluttery feeling had taken over her insides. She scanned the page, but there was a shocking absence of the great big slashes of red ink that she was so accustomed to seeing. Her smile wavered. Had he even read her essay? She was glad to receive an _E_ , but not if she hadn't really earned it.

She flipped the parchment over, and sighed in relief as she spotted his cramped, spiky script; in the subdued blue ink, it looked a lot less intimidating. She peered close and read by the light of her wand:

 _You present an interesting argument, Miss Granger. Certainly, Dark spells, classified variously as jinxes, hexes, and curses, are loosely defined by their common intent to cause harm. However, as you rightly point out, a simple Aguamenti can be used to drown a person if the caster is so inclined. So your conclusion — that Dark magic by its very nature is inclined to leave lasting, irreversible damage — is intriguing, and well supported with your example of Curse scars._

 _However, I urge you to closely consider this particular counter-example: Stupefy. As I am sure you are aware, if a person is hit by multiple simultaneous Stunners, or too many Stunners in a short span of time, lasting brain damage (even death) can often result. This is, unfortunately, an inherent property of the spell._

 _So, if the Dark Arts are, as you say, characterized by their inherent aptitude for causing lasting harm, then why is Stupefy not classified as Dark magic? Before you say: "because it's a Charm," ask yourself: who made it so?_

When she had read his comments through three times, Hermione rolled the parchment back up, placing it carefully in her bedside drawer. Then she extinguished her wand and crawled under the covers of her bed. But sleep would not come so easily tonight. Her mind raced, first reciting his comments (he thought her argument was interesting! And intriguing! And well supported!), then branching out in all directions at the challenge that he had posed to her. She certainly knew the damage wrought by Stunners— Professor McGonagall had landed in St. Mungo's last year, after all. So why _was_ Stupefy a Charm? Before she finally drifted off to sleep that night, Hermione mentally rearranged her next day's schedule, resolving to scour the library until she found out.

* * *

Thursday evening found Severus behind his desk in his sitting room in the dungeons. He had just poured himself a tumbler of Whiskey (Bell's, not Fire), and settled in to do his marking for the evening. After the unmitigated disaster that had been the previous essay question, he had learnt his lesson and assigned his sixth years something even their dim witted minds could grapple with: six inches on the history of any famous cursed object of their choice.

Three-quarters of an hour and five essays on the Hope Diamond later, he reached Granger's assignment. He unfurled the scroll, rolling his eyes as it reached down to a foot in length as he did so. Typical. But then he noticed something curious — there was a second, smaller parchment tucked in behind the first. He pulled it out and placed it in front of him on the desk, casting her assignment aside absently. As he began to scan its contents, the corner of his lips turned up into a self-satisfied smirk. His mother was right after all: you did catch more flies with honey.

 _The Stunning Charm (Stupefy) was crafted by the Committee on Experimental Charms in 1941. It was commissioned by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which was looking for an offensive spell that could be employed safely and reliably in combat. The Stunning Charm turned out to be the perfect solution, as it fully and painlessly incapacitated the victim, could be instantaneously reversed with a simple Counter Charm (Reenervate), and eventually wore off on its own after a period of several hours. It was also favoured by Aurors and Hit Wizards due to its ease of use, accuracy, and low requirement for magical power and intent. As a result, it was employed widely during the riots that broke out in Magical Britain during the Grindelwald Wars._

 _Although at the time of its development the Stunning Charm was thought to be completely safe, real time use on the ground has unfortunately shown that this is not always true. The shocking death of a 15 year old child hit by two close range stunners in 1944 prompted intensive research into the Charm's effects by the Department of Mysteries. The results of the research showed that the effect of a single mid-range stunning spell directed at an adult is consistent with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (colloquially known as a 'concussion'). Similar to suffering multiple concussions, multiple Stunners can result in lasting brain damage, with effects ranging from headaches, mood changes, and difficulty concentrating, to depression and cognitive deficits, and even death._

 _Nevertheless, no better alternative has been developed in the intervening years, and the Stunning Charm is still considered by leading Defence experts to be a paradigm of modern law enforcement. Despite its drawbacks, the Charm has been licensed for use by over 80 public and private magical organizations the world over, with revenues going to fund the Committee on Experimental Charms._

He looked up from her parchment and snorted. She had recited the history of the Stunning Charm from the _Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six_. But she had completely missed the point, of course. His hand tightened around his quill as he resisted the urge to write, "how are you so dumb" in big block letters across her parchment. He had come this far, no sense in wasting it now. He let his eyes fall shut and pretended that he was someone else — a tolerant teacher, who actually liked all of his students, no matter how hopelessly obtuse they were. His eyes snapped open in a moment of clarity: what would Lupin do?

With that thought firmly in mind, he put his quill to the back of her parchment and began to write…

* * *

On Sunday morning, Hermione escaped to the sanctuary of the library straight after breakfast. Ron was still cross with her for going to the Slug Club dinner the previous evening, and Harry was in a snit over his detention with Snape. (Apparently, Snape had made him sort flobberworms for hours, and banned him from using protective gloves.) She settled herself at her usual table in the far corner and got started on her Transfiguration homework. But thirty minutes later, she had only written three inches; her mind kept wandering to the piece of parchment that lay neatly folded in her rucksack. She huffed a breath, and finally gave up the Transfiguration essay as a lost cause, putting it aside. She leaned over in her seat, rummaging in her rucksack before emerging a moment later with the parchment that had occupied her thoughts all weekend long.

She straightened up and carefully unfolded the parchment, laying it out on the table in front of her. She had read it so many times since getting it back on Friday that she had almost committed the words to memory. But she liked following the jagged lines of his spiky script with her eyes, anyway.

 _You present a thorough description of Stupefy — but from what source? The Standard Book of Spells. Published by? Oh yes, the Ministry. Hardly an unbiased source on this subject. Of course a Ministry-published syllabus will regard Stupefy as the pinnacle of Light magic — it isn't exactly good PR for aurors to be using Dark spells, is it?_

 _Use that formidable brain of yours_ (the words were smudged where she had run her fingers over them multiple times) _and think! The point of last week's essay is that there is no such thing as the Dark magic. The "Dark Arts" is nothing more than a human construct, and one which the Ministry of Magic uses to its fullest potential in its clever PR games._

Hermione bit her lip, caught between elation that he had bothered to write her back, and disappointment that she had failed to impress him thus far. She had spent four hours in the library last Tuesday working on her answer to him, and that was in addition to the actual assignment! He hadn't seemed too interested in her essay on The Crying Boy Painting, although he had, once again, given her an _E_ , this time accompanied by a simple "sound work." Surprisingly enough, Hermione found that she wasn't too interested in her grade or his perfunctory comments on this second assignment. No, she was still wrapped up in their original discourse on the meaning of the Dark Arts. A meaning which, according to Professor Snape, she had yet to grasp in its entirety.

But no matter. He had assigned another short essay on curse scars to be handed in tomorrow, and she could slip her response to him in with that. At least she knew now that he cared enough about what she had to say to take the time out of his busy day to read and reply to it. And curiously, that was turning out to mean more to her than the grade itself.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Please review! Also, a request: I'm looking for someone to Britpick the hell out of my picks. Please reply if interested!


	3. Magic, Copyright

**A/N:** So, I'm back from hibernation. And by 'hibernation' I mean graduating school, finding a job, and opening a retail store. It's been a busy year. But I missed writing too much to stay away.

 **Chapter 3: Magic, Copyright**

In the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, Severus's eyes flicked to the clock for the fifth time in as many minutes. Close enough. Rising to a stand, he cleared his throat. "Class dismissed. Leave your essays on curse scars on my desk before you go. I hope for your sakes that you didn't all choose the same topic this time. There were only so many essays on the Hope Diamond that I could read before my brain disengaged and my hand started doling out _Ts_ indiscriminately."

As the students shuffled to the front one by one, the pile on his desk grew steadily taller. Unusually, Granger was the last of them to come up; she gingerly laid her scroll on top of the stack of parchments, and took a step back, catching his eye. Good God, was the girl — was she actually _smiling_ at him? He must have scowled at her in surprise, because her hesitant smile suddenly wavered as she dropped her gaze to the floor, a flush colouring the apples of her cheeks.

Before he could ponder her reaction any further, he caught a flash of platinum blond out of the corner of his eye. Sure enough, the little shit was trying to slip out the door unnoticed. "Draco, stay behind," he called out. When he looked for her again, Granger was already gone.

Severus waited until the last of the students had cleared out, before he shut and locked the door with a wave of his wand, then threw up a _Muffliato_ for good measure.

Draco hesitated, then started to mumble, eyes on his shoes, "I'll get the essay in for Wednesday, I swear. Last week's as well."

Severus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "This isn't about the essay, Draco, and you know it. Why didn't you come to my office yesterday? I sent for you."

Draco remained silent, shifting in place from foot to foot. It was disconcerting to see his Godson so subdued, and Severus felt his anger ebb away in favour of genuine concern.

He tried again. "This isn't like you, Draco. I know you are under a lot of pressure right now, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to you this weekend. The sooner we come up with a plan, the sooner this can all be over," he murmured, ending on a plea.

But Draco immediately recoiled, his lips twisting into an ugly sneer. _"We?_ There is no 'we.' The Dark Lord gave this task to _me_ , and me alone. I'm not going to let you steal all the glory!"

"The glory?" he repeated, staring back at Draco incredulously. Draco glared back with defiance in his eyes, but Severus noted the flush colouring his ears. He knew Draco well enough to know that it wasn't anger, it was embarrassment - no doubt at how ridiculous the boy sounded even to his own ears. Severus threw his hands up in the air, twisting at the waist as he did so. "Oh for fuck's sake Draco, grow up! I'm only trying to help you."

"Help me? You think I'm stupid? You just want to find out what I'm up to so that you can run and tell the headmaster!" There was a genuine fear in his wide eyes that Severus hadn't expected to see there.

A chill ebbed at his spine, and he resisted the urge to shiver. Ah, so that's what this was about. His own godson didn't trust him…truly didn't trust him…thought he would rat him out to the Headmaster without a second thought. What he _should_ be concerned about was the fact that Draco doubted his loyalty to the Dark Lord, and the threat that this represented to his cover. But it was difficult to focus on that threat when he felt nearly crippled by the dull pain in his chest that was suddenly making it difficult for him to catch his breath. This boy…this frustrating, impetuous, brat of a boy that he had held in his arms as a ruddy faced newborn, that he had allowed to call him _Uncle Sev_ and that he had now Vowed to protect not just with his life, but with his very soul at stake…But of course, Draco didn't know any of that. _Couldn't_ know any of that.

Severus let his eyes un-focus for a moment, and concentrated on his breathing, on the passage of air through his nose and past his throat, until he began to feel his mind clear and his heart beat slow. "And why," he said softly, utterly controlled now, "would I do a thing like that?"

But Draco, stubborn as he was, refused to back down. "Aunt Bella says that you're not really on our side. She warned me — told me that you'd be sniffing around —"

"Your dear Aunt Bella is a lying cunt," Severus said slowly, deliberately. "And yes, you can tell her I said that."

Draco couldn't keep his mouth from falling open, Severus noted with satisfaction. He'd never spoken quite so profanely in front of his Godson before, and it had made an impression, just as he'd intended. He watched Draco struggle to recover himself. "Maybe she is wrong about you," he finally conceded. "But I don't believe for a minute that you haven't got ulterior motives for offering me your 'help!'" Draco spat, drawing air quotes around the last word.

What could he say to that? The boy was right, damn him. He gaped a moment in silence — a moment in which Draco seized to spin on his heel, unlock the door, and wrench it open.

Severus started forward after him, calling out, "Draco!"

But all he got for his trouble was a door slammed in his face.

Severus drew back his leg and gave the door an almighty kick. As soon as his foot made contact with the heavy oak, he staggered backward, wincing. Motherfucking hell, that hurt! He really needed to stop doing that.

Severus thanked fuck, not for the first time, that he'd had a vasectomy (never trust a woman who says she's on the Pill, his dad used to say, and that particular wisdom applied equally well to contraceptive potions). Teenagers were little shits. Every last one of them. He should know — he had been one himself not too long ago.

He may have avoided the curse of fatherhood, but somehow he had still ended up as Guardian and Protector to two equally troublesome boys - one as dark as the other was fair. So help him God, he was going to get both those ungrateful little whelps through this war, even if it meant that he had to get creative with his moral code to manage it.

At that very moment, he spied her scroll out of the corner of his eye. It had fallen to the floor with the slam of the door. He bent to retrieve it, then collapsed backward against the edge of his desk, unfurling the scroll as he did so. There was a second small piece of parchment rolled in with it. He grasped it in his left hand, discarding her homework assignment with his right. It crumpled back onto the floor. He began to read:

 _There is no such thing as Dark Magic? But in our first class you said: "The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible." See, you're contradicting yourself! If there is no such thing as the Dark Arts, then why did you give us a definition for them?_

He shuddered involuntarily. Good God, as if it weren't bad enough that she regularly quoted the textbook verbatim without even paying lip service to the art of paraphrasing...now she was quoting him! He almost wanted to take points off for her failure to cite him in her bibliography. It would serve her right.

Granger may be hopelessly obtuse, but he didn't want to lose sight of his objective. And teaching Granger not to take everything so literally was not the objective of this little endeavour of his. Which was to draw her in closer, not push her away. This epistolary exchange was...cute...in an old fashioned sort of way, but he needed to move their interaction from the page to the face to face variety.

What could he use as a lure? The answer was so obvious that it practically smacked him upside the head.

* * *

By the time that the end of Defence class had rolled around on the afternoon of September 19, Ron had yet to acknowledge that it was her birthday, and Hermione was in a right foul mood. But when Professor Snape handed back their essays, she momentarily forgot all about Ron in her eagerness to lay eyes on his response.

Unable to wait until she was back in her dorm, she ducked into an alcove and hastily unfurled her homework assignment. Another _E_. But no matter. There was the extra strip of parchment she had slipped in with her essay. For a moment, her heart dropped when she didn't see any evidence of his spidery scrawl on the paper. But then she flipped it around, and sighed with relief. _There_ it was. Her heart started to beat a staccato in her chest.

 _I'm not contradicting myself, Miss Granger. If you want to know why, I suggest you start with some background reading: Magic, Copyright. We can continue our discussion when have finished the book._

Hermione took a deep breath and tried to smother her smile. A book. He was recommending that she read a book. Now _that_ was something that Hermione Granger knew very well how to do.

* * *

The next day, after classes were finished, a considerably humbled Hermione stood in front of Snape's office door, shifting from foot to foot. Should she go in? She had to...but he would be so disappointed in her. Could she bear it? But what choice did she have? Steeling her resolve, Hermione knocked timidly on the door, and slipped in quietly at Snape's answering 'Enter.'

He was marking. She could make out the great slashes of red ink littering the parchment in front of him, and cringed in solidarity with whichever poor soul he had verbally eviscerated this time. His nose was almost to the parchment now as he emphatically scribbled his comments at the bottom of the offending assignment. He didn't even look up at her as she approached his desk.

She took a deep breath. "Sir — could I please have a pass to the restricted section?" she asked quickly, fiddling with the strap of her rucksack.

Snape unhurriedly finished his sentence and placed his quill back in its inkwell, before leaning back in his chair and peering up at her. "And why would you need that, Miss Granger?" he asked in an entirely neutral tone of voice. His expression gave nothing away. She may have been literally standing over Snape, peering down on him as they spoke, but even from his semi-reclined position, the Professor exuded such an air of authority that Hermione felt like little more than a firstie who had just exploded her cauldron.

"Because," she said haltingly, "I searched the whole library for _Magic, Copyright,_ but I couldn't find it —"

"That would be because the library hasn't got a copy of it," he answered her in a bored, matter of fact tone of voice.

Her jaw dropped. "What? How is that possible?" she asked, and thought she caught a curl of amusement grace his lips.

"This may come as a shock to you, Miss Granger, but the Hogwarts library doesn't actually contain every single book ever written," he drawled. She felt a flush creep up her neck. Great, he was mocking her now.

She corralled her remaining courage and forced herself to struggle on. "But — but how am I supposed to read it, then?"

He gave her a long look, which made her shift uneasily in place. "The library hasn't got a copy of it, but I do."

"So you'll lend it to me then?" she asked quickly, excitement undisguised in her voice.

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

She frowned indignantly. "What? Why not? I mean — why would you recommend a book to me if you knew the library didn't have a copy of it and you weren't willing to lend me yours? That's — that's not very nice!" She sounded petulant even to her own ears, and had to catch herself before she stamped her foot.

Snape continued regarding her calmly. "I can't let you take that book back to your dorm with you, because it is banned." He paused, leaning to his left to open a desk drawer, and started rummaging inside it while he continued: "However, you are welcome to come to my office after class and read it there, if you wish." His eyes remained fixed on the contents of his drawer as he spoke.

"It's banned?"

He abandoned the drawer to favour her with a smirk. "Notoriously so."

"But why?"

"You'll just have to read it and tell me why you think it is so." His tone was light and his smirk curled into a sort of teasing half-smile that Hermione had never seen on his face before. It was a good look on him.

She bit her lip. "I — perhaps it is better that I not read it then," she said slowly. "I mean — if the Ministry and Professor Dumbledore don't want us reading it…maybe they've got a good reason…" Her indignation that a book - any book - was banned warred with her faith in authority figures.

He shrugged nonchalantly and turned back to his marking. "Suit yourself." The door flew open with a casual wave of his left hand.

Suddenly, Hermione couldn't think of anything more awful than leaving the room and ending this...exchange...between them. "Wait. I changed my mind. I want to read it."

"Is that so?" he asked lightly.

Firming up her resolve, she raised her chin and forced herself to look him directly in the eyes as she spoke. "Books — they shouldn't be banned anyway. Censorship is wrong. It doesn't accomplish anything other than reinforcing ignorance."

He gave her a searching look for several long seconds, and Hermione had to force herself not to shy away from his scrutiny. "Very well then, Miss Granger," he said finally. "See you in my office this evening after supper."

* * *

 **A/N:** It took me a while to work up the courage to post this chapter...my writing has gotten rusty and I've lost confidence...so I would really appreciate any words of encouragement, feedback, etc.


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